Free Parking by Small Business Saturday!

Local MP Mary Macleod has written to Council Leader Cllr Jagdish Sharma at Hounslow Council to ask him to promise 30 minutes of free parking across the Borough in time for “Small Business Saturday”, a national event celebrating small business taking place on 7th December.

Mary said: “On a day when we will be celebrating the character, value and importance of our small businesses, we should be making it as easy as possible for people to drop in and shop. It would be great if the Council could get behind the campaign and introduce 30 minute free parking in time for the event”.

In recent months, Mary has been leading a campaign on free parking. Her campaign asks Hounslow Council to introduce a Borough-wide, 30 minute free parking scheme which would allow people to be able to stop for a short amount of time to use local shops.

She also advocates the ‘HounslowCard’, which could have many additional uses and benefits such as:

• Providing a ‘top-up’ function, so that residents could pay for parking via the card.
• Discounted parking for elderly residents and students.
• A discount when buying from local independent shops signed up to the scheme.

Small Business Saturday started off in the United States and has been a huge success, leading to over 100 million Americans spending $5.5 billion.

Mary added: “Small Business Saturday in December will be a great way to boost small businesses during the Christmas period – the busiest time of the year for almost every business in this country. I really hope the Council will take action to help them out even further”.